This blog covers the practical techniques, trials and tribulations associated with the transformation of IT systems from legacy technologies to systems using SOA and modern open systems. It also includes the occasional interlude with rants about technology in general.

Friday, August 28, 2009

An SOA Taxonomy

It is one thing to say SOA is the most natural way to architect systems; another to figure out how SOA should be implemented. The way we define the SOA structure (its “taxonomy”) is important because it has a direct impact on the best organizational governance needed for its successful use.

While there are many ways to split the SOA-cake, in my experience it makes sense to borrow from the world around us. After all, we have already established that there is nothing new under the sun when it comes to SOA, and that humans have been using the service model quite naturally for thousands of years. Also, humanity has tested a variety of social structures that allegedly have improved over time. It’s easy to be cynical when looking at the issues facing us today, but feudal structures are no longer considered appropriate (at least by most of us in western societies), and sacrificing prisoners to appease the gods is frowned upon these days. It makes sense to look at how we operate today as a possible model for defining a proper SOA taxonomy.

Let’s start with the use of language, (human language, mind you; not the computer programming-kind). Think of sentences with their nouns and predicates and the concept of service interface can emerge naturally from it. “Give me the lowest fare for a flight to New York in April,” or “Find the address for Mr. John Jones,” are service requests you could make equally well to your assistant or to a software program.

Just as a language’s sentence has to follow specific grammatical rules, how we articulate the request follows an implied structure intended to guarantee the request is understood and that it is in fact actionable. Satisfaction of the service requires an agreement as to how the service request is going to be handled and an expectation of who is going to act on the service.

Acting upon language instructions would be impossible without a specialization framework. When you call for a taxi, you don’t expect a hot-dog cart to show up, and if you need to summon emergency services, you dial 911 and not the pizza delivery service (you can tell I am kind of hungry as I write this!)

In fact, much of the social fabric related to the various roles and institutions usually referred to as ‘civilization’ are nothing more than a broad framework for the services we deliver or receive.

The streets we traverse, the sewage and plumbing systems beneath it, and the way electricity is delivered via power grids are infrastructure elements we all take for granted in support of the ‘civilization’ framework.

Finally, requesting services via the right language, using the means of civilization and the needed infrastructure would be all for naught if we were only capable to utter nonsensical commands (‘ride me to the moon on your bike’), or even requests not followed by the magic words (‘here is my credit card’). There are protocols that must be followed to ensure the entire system works as expected and these represent the social and legal ecosystem from which everything else flows.

This is essence the SOA taxonomy I will be discussing in more detail next. The elements encompassed by SOA are no different from the Language-Civilization-Infrastructure-Protocols pattern I’ve just discussed. For SOA, the equivalent pattern is Services-Framework-Foundation-Techniques:

a.The Services as the language of SOA. It is not the same thing ordering a meal at McDonalds as it is at a five star restaurant (yes, I’m still hungry!). There are services and then there are services.A clear understanding of what constitutes a service is essential to the SOA approach.

b.The emerging SOA Framework as the civilization. Trying to approach SOA in the same mindset as a traditional design is not feasible. SOA demands the establishment of new actors and their roles. Here I’ll discuss the proposed introduction of a common enterprise service bus (ESB) as a potential common transport for all SOA interactions, and the guidelines related to the access of data by services.

c.The physical Foundation. SOA is a beautiful approach, but it still relies on actual wires and moving bits and bytes—a suitable infrastructure. Here I will cover the distributed model, and the systemic approaches to scaling and managing SOA.

d.The Techniques needed to make SOA work. Imagine that you are given the opportunity to race against a professional NASCAR driver using a superior car that of the professional. Or that you are to compete against Tiger Woods in a round of golf using a better golf club. Odds are that, even with better equipment, you won’t win. Ultimately, you can have the best equipment, but it’s the way you use it that makes a difference in the results. Good equipment, like good infrastructure and services, can only be leveraged with appropriate techniques that only expert hands and minds can apply.

IT Transformation with SOA

About Me

Israel has been recognized by Computerworld as one of their Premiere 100 IT honorees. Israel is a business and technology leader who has contributed the technology vision as key strategist and designer behind the enterprise technology roadmaps of large hospitality and travel companies. Israel has also have developed and deployed various mission-critical systems and in the process, he's been instrumental in creating and building effective and skilled development organizations.